Nothing Left To Say
by zenithoflife
Summary: 8: 55pm The clock ticks, another silent minute gone--lost in the eons of time. The only thing that illuminates the room is the single sakura blossom that sits fresh and untainted in the window opposite the pub, glistening in the light. Ichiruki


trapped between an vicious cycle of ideals and reality and bound by the endless shackles of sacrifice. – Death Note

To me, the love in this world has only symbolized eternal despair. – Godchild

**Nothing left to say ****by zenithoflife**

The clock ticks, another silent minute gone; lost in the eons of time.

8: 55pm. The faded glass is caked over with layer over layer of caked dirt that he wonders idly how he still can see the time through the glass. A single ray of light from the outside street lamp, distorted through the filth encrusting the window pane, seeps in through the cracks. The only thing that illuminates the room is the single sakura blossom that sits fresh and untainted in the vase in the house opposite the pub, glistening in the light emanating from the naked florescent bulb that lights up the outside street.

He hates it.

He drinks denial as he meditates over the sadness that seems to be eating him from the inside out. He sits on the creaky old chair and he tilts the dusty bottle that seems to have faded cobwebs congealing on the filthy inside but he doesn't care. He detachedly thinks that he feels a cobweb brushing his head as he sits in the ashes of the relationship that seems to have crumbled like that paper thin cards that Yuzu and Karin used to play with.

Flutter, flutter, they all fall down as one false move—a single misplaced card, a light touch like the wisp of a butterfly's kiss, and the once strong unyielding house of cards is razed to the ground.

_It was temporary, you understand? __It wasn't meant to last._

8: 56.

Flutter, flutter, like their relationship.

Their relationship. He hates the word, how it can so efficiently sum up their feelings so easily like it was that simple, to wrap the layers of grief, passion, duty and everything else in between in a single word.

He tastes the bitter acidic bile that chokes and fills his mouth at the thought of her and no matter how much he drinks, the alcohol just can't seem to wash the taste of _ithertheirlove_ out of his mouth. It is like a drug, his drug, one that he just can't get enough of, and he wants and doesn't want it to stop all at the same time. The taste of her lingers cloying and sacchariferous at the corner of his mouth as thoughts of her dash at his brain and the back of his mind and he thinks numbly that he would give anything to forget everything.

He swallows and swallows until he realises that there is only a single drop left; his hand rising and falling mechanically like a faded marionette, strings pulled taut, dancing jerkily in a grotesque parody of a happy dance.

Hop, skip, leap. Through the air like a bird, just like the ones that she said wistfully once that she envied because of their freedom. And he mocked her because he hated the distraught look in her eyes until she kicked him in the shins. But he didn't care because that lost sober look in her eyes disappeared, because it didn't mean anything—he just didn't like her looking like—like—the world was collapsing around her; because whatever happened, he promised to always be there for her and everyone knows that Kurosaki Ichigo keeps his promises.

8:57

Dance , little puppet, dance. Instead of the dexterous elegant fingers of the puppeteer, this time it's in the fingers of an amateur, unused to the art of this long forgotten craft. The marionette is pulled this way and that, and its garish makeup looks pathetic in the light as it parades obligingly in front of the many penetrating eyes.

Under the glaring lights, its smile is more like a sneer, lips pulled up in a brazen leer and all of a sudden the tawdry stage with its gaudy decorations disappears and all he can see is the slash of lipstick on the features of the puppet, with its heartbreaking violet eyes until it obscures his vision altogether and he seems to be swimming in a pool of blue-green, the exact shade of her eyes.

His head swims in a kaleidoscope of blinding colour and he can sense the onset of a throbbing headache on the morrow but that is tomorrow and for now, all he wants to do is be rid of the anguish and the—_what the hell are you doing, Kurosaki? _

And he sees Renji or is that Hisagi and why the hell are there three people wearing the same kind of uniform in front of him? He sways unsteadily as he looks at Renji—it is Renji after all—and he laughs, a guttural low guffaw of amusement that changes its timbre and fades into oblivion when his defiant stomach rebels. But all he wants to do is laugh and laugh and laugh because he wants to—and who the hell can stop him from laughing—he is Kurosaki Ichigo, and no one can stop from feeling this pain that is so intense that it robs him from breathing. He wants to laugh his troubles all away because she didn't _wantneedlove _him anymore and he is just another fucking idiot who is sitting in this deserted smoky bar to drink all his sorrows away. He knows its impossible but it's the only thing he can do now and he tries anyway.

8:58. Tick-tock, tick-tock. The clock mocks him as the minute hand inches towards the moment of truth and he pretends that he doesn't give a damn. But one minute passing is one minute closer Kurosaki Ichigo ceases to exist but he tries futilely to act like he doesn't care because honestly, even if he wanted to—which he kept telling himself he didn't even as every fibre of his being strained to get up and leave, throw down a wad of cash and shunpo himself out of this filthy room with its blackened table clothes and feculent surroundings—he really couldn't do anything.

Renji sits and stares at him and his eyes have that pitying understanding that Ichigo discerns instinctively. All he knows now is that he doesn't want or need Renji's pity _because he is Kurosaki Ichigo and he doesn't want anyone's sympathy, goddamnit_. He tries to act unconcerned, to return his gaze except that his vision blurs and all he can feel is the blood pounding in his ears and he turns over and retches onto the grimy floor. Vermillion bile spurts out in an arc onto the floor, tainting it, making it filthier than it already was but he doesn't give a shit because that was the reason he came to drink, wasn't it?

He downs another sickening shot of vodka—or gin, he can't tell the difference—he only knows its something that can help him get past the first night and at the thought of the _hundredsthousandsbillions_ more to come, stretching on into infinity, he can't help but down yet another swallow. It sickens him, this dependence on her and he thinks he can't live without her in his life, yet he knows that he has to and another rip tears his soul. Rivulets of vodka seeps through the gap between his waiting mouth and the cracked bottle head and he dashes them away with a single flick of his hand, whilst Renji looks on pity colouring his gaze. _She loved you, you know._

Loved. Not loves. He laughs grimly to himself as he poured out another shot. Like he didn't care that she had virtually tore through the tulmunous motions and laid bare his heart lying in the ashes of the dirt.

All of a sudden, the clock chimes, 9:00 pm and the discordant notes of a distant saxophone breaks the silence like a knife leaving jagged edges. The grating sound jars him awake and he peers sluggishly at Renji through the sake-induced haze. His bloodshot eyes, gritty with lack of sleep focus on Renji and he rakes his fingers through his hair before stumbling to his feet. _Hey, where the hell do you think you're going—_

He can hear Renji's holler, but for now, all he can concentrate on is getting out, getting away from Renji's eyes that see too much, that _know _too much, and he knows that he is merely trying to evade the reality that hammers at his consciousness and refuses to fade away despite copious amounts of sake and whatever the hell he can get his hands on to numb the pain.

The sickening splinter of flesh, bone and glass slices through the air, aiming straight for the centre of the heart like one of Ishida's Quincy arrows. The glass shards penetrate his hand and he hears a muffled shout and the sound of pounding feet on asphalt and he knows that he's going to get into trouble for this, shinigami—even substitute shinigamis, aren't supposed to break open civilians' houses—but he doesn't care because __, and he rips the flower savagely until the delicate petals of the sakura blossom lay in shreds, littering the ground where he stands.

And all he can do is wonder why the world isn't ending, why it is still moving and why the hell is he still alive when all he feels is an unending numbness seeping slowly through his veins like molten ice when she releases her sword.

He feels a shuffle of feet behind him and he feels, more than hears, Renji behind him.

'You know she didn't want to do it, the elders forced Byakuya—something about disgracing the clan and she didn't have a choice, you know it better than anyone else, don't you—' Renji's words spill out and he is rushing through his words, trying to get him to understand—

'It doesn't make her any less married now.' Ichigo's voice is curt and full of hidden pain because she is no longer his—she is now legally married to the nameless faceless nobleman whom he doesn't know. And he wants to kill, to destroy, to rip apart the world with his fingers because she isn't his anymore; she would never run her fingers through his tangled hair, fight with him over whose turn it was to get up and turn the bedroom light off because he was too lazy to move from his comfortable position beside her—

and Renji trails off, sensing a hidden sorrow as deep and endless as eternity itself and as insurmountable to him as Tatsuki, Chad and countless others no doubt tried before.

And all of a sudden, he could see the man that Rukia must have always known—under the hollow façade of false bravado and rashness, his brusque way of speaking and he could see the indescribable grief that crept into his amber orbs and consumed him from the inside out.

And a single silver object tinkles to the ground and rolls to a stop at Renji's feet as it escapes from Ichigo's pocket as he is about to leave. Entwining bands of black and white accentuating the elegant amethyst jewel nestling between the sleek unfurling ring merely seemed incongruous now—the same chains that bound and fettered them.

'You—' The word tumbled out unwillingly from between his frozen lips and he is unable to move, staring at it, daring Ichigo to say something, do something—anything at all. They had always been rivals, for power, for glory, then for Rukia—yet words defeat him as he stares at an eternity of anguish in Ichigo's tormented eyes.

Ichigo disappears in a swirl of shunpo, leaving only the fragile blossoms fluttering to the ground, the only proof that he had once been there at all; as the melody of violins weep sorrowfully in the night air, a melancholy lament for what could have been but now never would be.

There was nothing left to say.


End file.
